if the container was tight and there's no 2 cycle oil in it, the gas may be
in better condition than you might think.
as long as it's clean (no water, etc in the bottom) you can probably use it.
test a little of it in a lawnmower or whatever, and i think you'll find that
it is usable.
bill

Cant be revived. Its gone bad. If anything you can mix it with fresh
gas and run it on lawnmowers snowblowers etc. (would put it into a
car, might damage things)
Might not run the best but sometimes it better than dumping.
Otherwise you can use it to kill weeds grass etc along the fence.
Tom

Naw, you can put a gallon or two of old gas into a car tank that's more
or less full with new gas (and has room, duh) without screwing anything
up. The new gas has enough reserve solvent capacity to keep anything
solidifying from the old gas in solution. At least, that's what the
lawnmower and snowblower sites I've been looking at lately tell me.

I found that adding old gasoline to my Farmall Cub tractor caused severe
valve sticking. I recently talked to someone removing heads from an air
cooled VW who had done the same thing. It is highly variable, you may very
well be able to mix it with fresh fuel and burn it without trouble.
Don Young

You will get all sorts of answers, possibly
because of varying conditions but often due to
blind prejudice. First 1 year old is not a
problem, 2 years old means be careful, 3 years old
means be really careful and the best advice is to
dump it. If the container is full or nearly, if it
wasn't subject to high or warm temperatures for
the entire period the gas will be in much better
condition that stored in a 1/2 full can and at
higher temperatures.
If it really is about 1 year old just added a
gallon of it at a time to 18 or more gallons of
gas in any vehicle.

George has it right. My suggestion is to add a little at a time to your
car's gas tank. Only do this with a nearly full tank in the car. No more
than a gallon at a time, I would use less. Diluted like this will be safe
for your car.
Today's gas is better than that of years ago so it will last longer
before going bad, which it does just a little at a time.

Yes and no... the advent of in-tank electric fuel pumps for fuel
injection, which are not prone to vapor lock, has led to the refineries
leaving a lot of the real light fractions in the gasoline that they
couldn't in the past, so that they evaporate out more. In fact, older
evaporative pollution control systems from the early 80s and such get
maxed out by current fuel. Whether that would be a problem for a
lawnmower with no fuel pump is dubious, of course.

The evaporation will lead to hard starting, but the oxidation etc. are
what causes varnish and sediment.
Long boring story: I bought a 7 year old Corvair at one point; the
fancy kind with 4 carbs, two primaries and two secondaries. Only the
primaries had idle jets this early in production, and the secondaries
were on a progressive linkage, which meant that unless you floored it,
the gas did not flow through them, just sat and slowly evaporated out
of the float bowls. I guess whoever owned it did not drive very
energetically, as I discovered that both secondary fuel bowls were
absolutely and completely full of solid matter that could not be
removed with any amount of carb cleaner and manual labor, and the carbs
had to be junked. I wonder why the original owner went for the 4 carb
version in the first place?

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